Cloud Usage Details

The Cloud Usage chart shown by clicking the Cloud Usage Hours card on the Administrator’s Dashboard provides an overview of usage based on the amount of data sent from the institution (tenant) in our cloud to the users accessing Echo360.

Hover your mouse over each bar for a more detailed breakdown of the usage for that month.

Click on the Data Type in the Legend to show ONLY that data in the graph.

Use the Organization and Department drop-down lists located at the top of the Dashboard to filter Cloud Usage data as needed.

When viewing the cloud usage data, please note the following: > When filtering the chart for an Organization or Department, you will only see VOD-Org/Dept data. This is because VOD-Institution by definition does not fall into an Org or Dept, and Live and Other are only available for institution-level viewing. > Org/Dept filtered data is displayed from the time the org/dept level data categorization was implemented, approximately Jan 10-15, 2018 forward. February is the first full month of data. > All data in the institution-level chart prior to mid-January is shown on the institution-level chart as VOD-Institution; data usage was only placed into Org/Dept categorization beginning in Jan 2018.

Defining Usage

Usage is our term for “data delivery”. Any and all outbound data, from your tenant in the Echo360 cloud to a user, qualifies against cloud usage. This is typically discussed in terms of “content delivery” but it applies to any type of data provided to any of your users.

The Cloud Usage chart shows usage in terms of “hours”, which is actually a conversion of data delivery size to “usage hours” as follows:

310MB is the average size of a one-hour long Audio-Video-Display capture. Even in terms of content viewing, this means that the “hours” you see in the chart doesn’t directly represent the actual hours of content viewed, because different types of content have different sizes.

For example, if a user watches an hour-long Audio-Display capture, this activity gets translated into a Cloud Usage measure of less than one hour because the A/D capture file size is smaller than 310 MB.

Furthermore, as hinted at above, it’s not just content viewing that requires the outbound movement of data. Users (all users – not just students) downloading files, accessing different pages in the interface, using notes and discussions, administrative use of the system outside of terms, etc., also require the outbound movement of data. All of this usage is rolled up and calculated using the above equivalent, and shown to Administrators as “hours” in the Cloud Usage chart.

Data included in usage calculations

The Echo360 service continuously tracks the data, as delivered in bytes, from the licensed tenant (your institution) to any user. The major drivers of Cloud Usage include:

VOD-Institution: This is made up of video-on-demand (VOD) content and presentation slides that have been viewed either outside of a section/class (using a posted link to the video or an embedded video in a portal or LMS) OR content viewed inside sections/courses that are NOT associated with an Organization or Department. Essentially, VOD-Institution is usage data for media viewing that cannot be put into a bucket for an Organization or Department.

VOD-Org/Dept: This is made up of both video-on-demand (VOD) content and presentation slides that have been viewed within sections/classrooms that ARE associated (through their course) with an Organization or Department.

Both types of VOD data usage include content viewed through a browser or via the Echo360 mobile app. This also includes user downloads, as described below.

Live content: This includes any classes streamed live to viewers in real-time. Once the class is finished and the recording is processed, it becomes a VOD-capture and subsequent views are counted as "on-demand content" as described above, or as downloaded content if downloaded by a user for viewing locally.

Downloads: Users can download content for later viewing. This includes both VOD and presentations/PDFs. Only the size of the download itself is counted against the bundle; views of downloaded content are local and not streamed from the cloud.

Other: This includes all the other data transmission from the cloud to registered users. This might include the delivery of application web pages, exporting of configuration information, or system usage information for use with external systems, other data downloads or exports, etc.

These “other” activities combined are usually quite small relative to content viewing or download, but do occur and are counted. This might explain why your chart shows “usage” during between-term months or another downtime when you generally believe that content is not being accessed much if at all.

What is in a Cloud Usage Bundle? Rather than charge for incremental storage, media processing, database, and streaming costs separately, we simplify these pricing dimensions into a single Cloud Usage Bundle that covers all these costs.

Data used by each content type

It’s impossible to be exact about these figures, but we have already provided a general idea as to the file sizes (per hour) of the different types of capture profiles (content). Refer to the table in the following help topic: On-Demand Playback Data Rate and Usage.

The data figures shown for each type of capture can help you make some basic calculations as to the data usage for each. Keep in mind that multiple online views of a capture by a single student will generate multiple instances of that data stream.

Also, remember that those figures are averages; if the video is low light and/or high-movement, the data rate may be higher. If the video is a more static feed (e.g., a professor speaking at a podium) the data rate will be closer to average or possibly even below.

But use those averages to help make the necessary decisions about capture types and inputs, to find the balance that works best for your institution.